1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of retail sales and more particularly to managing receipts for retail purchases.
2. Description of the Related Art
The venerable receipt provides physical evidence of the consummation of the purchase of goods or services. Generally, the receipt can include a record both of the product or service purchased, the purchase price, and the mode of payment. Optionally, the receipt can specify a date and time of purchase, and identifying information relating both to the vendor and the purchaser. Receipts can range from printed tape receipts produced by conventional cash registers to electronic mail inserts distributed over the global Internet.
Within the retail industry, products often can be returned for exchange or for full or partial refund. Additionally, most warranty work requires evidence of product purchase. Finally, many rebate offers require the presentation of an original receipt or a facsimile copy thereof. Consequently, many consumers have grown accustomed to retaining their cash receipts for days, months or even years subsequent to the purchase of retail goods. Still, most retail goods are never returned, exchanged or presented for warranty service. Moreover, the vast majority of product receipts are stored for long periods of time without purpose.
As it will be recognized by the ordinary consumer, the collection and storage of cash receipts can become unwieldy over time as dozens if not hundreds of small and large slips of paper alike can be misplaced, lost or otherwise destroyed. Locating any one receipt amongst dozens also can be problematic and cleansing ones collection of receipts can be difficult and typically requires the manually sifting through a pile of receipts to locate those receipts which have become temporally or substantively stale and no longer require retention.